It was a very hot and wet spring this year. This meant the grass grew quickly and during soccer season! When I was not running to practices for soccer, Shuberts, or Jui Jitzu, we were dodging rain drops. This means the grass grew very high very quickly! It allowed the huge and scary but harmless wolf spiders to be stalking everywhere in the yard. This one was on the side of the house after I ran over the tall grass, er weeds, on the south side.
A few weeks later our Red Tail Hawk got a little too comfortable being so close to the house. It really is a love hat relationship with him or her. Right now, I love seeing how graceful he flies and listening to his calls and eating the snakes and mice/voles (hate the voles! They have killed two more trees!). But as soon as we get our chicken, more to come later about those, I will hate him. In this shot he is looking at me trying to snap his picture from the sliding doors while he is under the fort.
Well, here in the DC area, Terrapins are pretty common. Well, I guess you thought it was a regular turtle! No, I was looking out across our back yard, that is the tamed areas behind the house, and noticed the grass moving slowly. Upon further investigation, after I could tell it was not a snake, with Karl's help, I got his picture. Yes, this is a snapping turtle and it is mating season for them. SO the nice thing to do is to move them in the direction they were traveling, if they are crossing the road, bring them over to the other side, if they are crossing your backyard, move them to the other side of the orchard! Terrapins always go to their birth place to mate. If you move them to where it is convenient for you, they will turn back to where they were going. Wow such good sense of direction!
Then I was looking out the window, about mid morning, and saw this orphan nippling the grass at the edge of the tamed area and wild land. He was alone. However, after getting a couple of shots, I had to scare him off or he would be getting brave enough to eat my garden about 50 yards from where he was testing the area. Oh, we need to let the dogs out more but not today.
I have chuckled about how we do not need to go visit a nature preserve, we have one in our back yard. Other sightings we have seen but not got on picture is the baby ground hogs, voles and moles, red fox, and Karl says the beaver is back at the pond. From the air is the crows, various owls and birds, a few bald eagles and the turkey vultures. I did see a few wild turkeys in early spring near the crop line for the farmers who plant the fields around us.
